STEPHENIE WILSON PETERSON: Nellie Nova Takes Flight (Volume 1).

SHOCKED, SHOCKED: Forty-Nine of 50 States Will See Premium Hikes in 2016.

THIS AUTHOR DOESN’T GET IT: She’s obviously never been one of the “needy.”  Right now, we can buy lottery or not, take it or leave it.  BUT when we were incredibly broke, we bought the lottery every weekend.  And we were never disappointed.  You see, we weren’t really buying a chance at millions.  We knew that was unlikely.  (My husband’s degree is Pure Math.) We were buying a chance to dream. Between whenever we bought the lottery and the drawing, we spent all that money a billion different ways, and forgot for a moment that we didn’t actually have enough spare money to buy new paperback books or, you know, buy a movie ticket, or meat for dinner. It was totally worth it. Why Big Powerball Jackpots are Bad For Us.

STEPHANIE OSBORN: Sherlock Holmes and the Mummy’s Curse: Book One of Sherlock Holmes: Gentleman Aegis.

IS THIS NORMAL: Or is it the random nature of this crime that makes it all more difficult? The haunted lives of the jurors who convicted James Holmes.

FLASHBACK: Trump’s Rise A Response To An Increasingly Isolated And Tyrannical Elite.

BOWIE. “How do you recap the career of the man who was Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and the Thin White Duke?,” asks Steve Green. “How do you sum up the music of the man who invented Glam, who recorded Alt Rock before there was an alternative scene, who with Brian Eno helped invent electronica, the Englishman who recorded great big blue-eyed soul like a Philly native, the pop crooner of twisted love songs, the hard rock frontman of Tin Machine, and who fought off his own death just long enough to release one final and haunting album? How do you define a human being whose personal life stretched from the darkest sex & drug days of the ’70s to a long and happy marriage to one of the most beautiful women in the world, from rumored dalliances with Mick Jagger to being a devoted and private family man?”

Read the whole thing — though perhaps Bowie himself summed up his multifaceted career — or at least his lyrical aims — the best: “The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I’ve always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety — all of the high points of one’s life.”

NARRATIVE CONTROL: Imagine That: Supposedly Mythical ‘No-Go Zones’ Are Back in the News — But Not at U.S. Media Outlets.

PACKS OF GERMANS CONDUCT REVENGE ATTACKS AFTER NYE SEX ASSAULTS:

Packs of vigilantes conducted what appear to be revenge attacks on foreign nationals in Cologne, Germany — the same location where refugees and migrants reportedly sexually assaulted hundreds of women New Year’s Eve.

Cologne police said 20 men attacked at least six Pakistani nationals Sunday near the city center where the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults and robberies took place, reported CNN. About 20 minutes after the attack, an apparently separate group of five men assaulted a man of Syrian descent.

The Syrian man was injured, and two of the Pakistani nationals were hospitalized. The attackers allegedly beat the Pakistani men and verbally abused them. Police are looking to press charges as the group of men committed “serious bodily harm.”

As Glenn has written about American law enforcement, “Police don’t actually protect law-abiding citizens from criminals so much as they protect criminals from the much-rougher justice they’d get in the absence of a legal system. Burglars would be hung from lampposts, and shoplifters would be beaten and tossed into the gutter if there were no police, as in fact happens in countries where there isn’t a reliable justice system and a civil-society culture that restrains vigilantism. Reminder to the criminal class: Ultimately, we’re not stuck in this country with you. You’re stuck in this country with us.”

That’s something the immigrants — and Germany’s failing political class should remember.

And with “Europe’s political class…firmly scolding anyone who draws the wrong conclusions” after the Muslims’ sex assaults, as Michael Brendan Dougherty asks at The Week, “Does Germany’s leadership class secretly want to destroy the European Union? I’m beginning to wonder.”

Perhaps the real question is, does Germany’s leadership want to destroy Germany? Dougherty adds, “The message to ordinary Germans is clear: You can’t be allowed to say what you are thinking. And you probably shouldn’t think it either.” If German politicians keep up that mindset, they’re about to make the horrible situation they engineered for their nation far worse.

FREDDIE DE BOER EXPLAINS the self-herding behavior of lefty media.

WE’VE HELPED THEM ENOUGH: Haiti Is Broken Because Of Intervention.

The Clintons’ friends and relations made a lot of money off of “helping” them.

AT AMAZON, 50% or more off in TV & Video.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Feckless leadership here and in Europe opens doors for the fringe: Political bungling abounds while presidents and prime ministers try to change the subject.

DE BLASIO’S NEW YORK LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKE TAXI DRIVER: 4 teens arrested in gang rape of 18-year-old in Brooklyn playground.

Four teens who forced a father to leave his daughter so they could take turns raping her at a park have been arrested, New York police say — but a fifth suspect is still at large.

The 18-year-old daughter was with her father at the Osborn Playground in Brooklyn around 9 p.m. Thursday when they were approached by five males, the New York Police Department said.

One of the men pulled a gun on the father and daughter and demanded the father leave the area, police said.

Each of the five assailants then raped the teenager, authorities said.

The father told CNN affiliate WABC he was near the handball court with his daughter having a drink when the men came.

“One of them put a gun in my face, telling me to run, and all of them had their way with her,” the father told WABC.

He said he didn’t have a cell phone with him and went to a store, begging for help — but said the store wouldn’t call police.

Too bad he didn’t have a gun — but the New York authorities would have treated him worse than they’ll probably treat these rapists. Because they don’t really care what happens to citizens, but violating gun laws is a threat to their authority.

UPDATE: Okay, the followup story indicates that the dad was too drunk to benefit from having a gun.

REMEMBER THOSE DISAPPEARING ROSE LAW FIRM BILLINGS FOR HILLARY CLINTON? You know, the ones that mysteriously showed up in the Clinton White House personal residence more than two years after a subpoena was issued for them by the Whitewater special counsel.

It’s Deja Vu all over again today in the Hillary Email scandal. Seems the State Department waited until late Friday to tell a federal court that thousands of previously undiscovered documents related to the former Secretary of State’s use of a private email and server have been found. Non-profit government watchdog Judicial Watch announced the discovery today.

CHANGE: Your Tesla Can Now Autonomously Park Itself.

YOU STAY CLASSY, NASA. Watch: NASA’s chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt claims Texans won’t listen to ‘liberal, Jewish atheist from NYC’ about ‘global warming.’

But why would they, when it’s all too late anyhow, as the expiration date has come and gone on NASA’s James Hanson’s claim in January of 2009 that Obama only had four years to save the earth.

SWEDISH POLICE COVERED UP SEXUAL-ASSAULT REPORTS TO SUPPRESS VOTE FOR ANTI-IMMIGRATION PARTY: “Some times we do not really say how things are because we believe it may play into the hands of the Sweden Democrats.”

Plus: “These cases are very particular. There are groups of guys who are deliberately focusing on surrounding and molesting girls. At first we were completely shocked by their actions.”

Related: “EU police authorities usually treat data on migration & crime as state secrets.”

For example: “In Cologne alone, more than 11,000 people have been robbed in this way in the last three years. According to police, all of the perpetrators have been male and in the majority of cases, they have come from North African countries such as Morocco and Algeria.”

#THANKSOBAMA: New Membership Queries Crash NRA’s Phone Line.

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on Men’s Athletic Shoes.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Nearly half of 2015 California drivers licenses went to illegals.

STORM CLOUDS FORM: Bob Woodward Compares Hillary Scandal to Watergate.

No wonder, when they were still at the Post, before Jeff Bezos banished them to Siberia Vox.com, the juicebox mafia was so eager to destroy Woodward.

TRUMP NOW PLAYS ‘BORN IN THE U.S.A.’ AT HIS RALLIES: He couldn’t be drawing attention to a certain Texas senator, could he?

Related: “GOP Chairman Reince Priebus Won’t Say If Ted Cruz Is Eligible To Be President… Of course good ole’ Reince was quick to defend Obama from unfounded accusations of ineligibility.”

Update: “You reek of desperation, Rand Paul,” as Paul also goes Birther against Cruz.

SALE OF THE NEW REPUBLIC SPELLS A POLITICAL STORY OF DEMOCRATS’ DEMISE, Ira Stoll writes in the New York Sun. Certainly the demise of the sane center-left:

What did the New Republic stand for? Under the long editorship of Martin Peretz, if the magazine stood for anything, it was the idea that Israel had reliable allies — and Islamic extremism had reliable enemies — among the American intellectual center-left elites. That certainty is now gone, as evidenced by, among other things, the paltry opposition in the Democratic Party to President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. Senator Schumer and Rep. Nita Lowey of New York voted to block the deal, but theirs was a lonely stance.

Under Mr. Peretz, the New Republic editorialized in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement, entertained doubts about the justice and efficacy of race-based affirmative action, supported American military intervention in Bosnia, published a devastating takedown of Hillary Clinton’s health care plan, and otherwise displayed an admirable independent-mindedness. It was a counterpoint to the blame-America-and-capitalism-first attitude of other left-of-center publications such as the Nation or Mother Jones. It wasn’t clear that Mr. Hughes was interested in pursuing that political agenda, or that, even if he was, there was an audience remaining for it.

Read the whole thing.

Earlier: WELL, THAT WAS FAST: New Republic Owner Chris Hughes Puts Magazine Up For Sale.

IS THE CINCINNATI BENGALS’ VONTAZE BURFICT THE FACE OF THE NEW NFL? “Are Burfict and the others who play in the Jungle the new face of the NFL?”, asks Christian Adams. “Should we expect more headhunting and outlandish conduct after interceptions next season? When coaches like Marvin Lewis receive a vote of confidence after Saturday’s embarrassing display, it’s not good for the reputation of the NFL.”